Re: Customize fringe

From:

Robert J. Chassell

Subject:

Re: Customize fringe

Date:

Fri, 10 May 2002 10:44:27 +0000 (UTC)

The basic name of a feature has a strong influence on how people
think of it ....
Miles is right:
* if I toggle mouse-avoidance-mode, I expect the mouse appear or go
away, as the documentation says;
* if I toggle font-lock-mode, I expect Font Locking to turn on or off.
By the same reasoning,
* if I toggle fringe-mode, I expect the fringe to appear or vanish;
* if I toggle reduced-fringe-mode, I expect the fringe to appear or
be reduced. (I can also imagine that if I give a zero-width
argument to reduced-fringe-mode, I can reduce the fringes to zero
width. But then, I am no longer an Emacs newbie.)
Hence, if the goal is to encourage people to use fringes of some
width, be the width large or small, on one side or two, in those
circumstances where fringes make sense, then reduced-fringe-mode is a
better name.
If, on the other hand, the goal is to enable people to turn off
fringes altogether, even in situations where Emacs can handle them,
then fringe-mode is a better name.
--
Robert J. Chassell address@hidden
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com